Bile peritonitis in infancy.

Extravasation of bile into the peritoneal cavity of infants and children, unassociated with trauma, has been described sufficiently rarely in the past to merit the reporting of two further cases. The term 'bile peritonitis' is misleading as a description of the clinical picture seen in these particular infants. The condition is essentially an escape of bile following rupture of some component of the extra-hepatic biliary system, forming a collection in the peritoneal cavity. Some of this is fluid drawn from the various peritoneal and intestinal tissues by the relatively high osmotic pressure of the escaping bile (Gross, 1953), but there is no acute peritonitis. This is, therefore, a bile ascites unaccompanied by disease of the liver or peritoneum.